Does this bullet leave an exit wound?
by Winter M
Summary: "Arthur groped blindly across the dash, grabbing his own gun and turning it on his companion; the muzzle was cool, "Can't say it's been much of a pleasure Mr. Eames," the flash was blistering." For angst bingo prompt 'bullet wounds.'


Does this bullet leave an exit wound?

By: lj user=winter_rogue

Rating: PG-13 for violence

Warning: violence, people get shot

Summary: for lj user=angst_bingo prompt 'bullet wounds.' Five bullets plus one.

Five

Eames had known Mal from way back, during the early days, before the government really knew what they had. Before it started to look safer for them all to get out; just get the hell out before it all went to shit and collapsed around them like an unstable dream. He remembered Cobb, a suede and elbow patches caricature. Two years after he's conned his way out of the program, run, it's Mrs Cobb -now- who calls him up. She says-

"We have a most interesting job and a proposal for you. Something, I think, requiring your unique skills, yes?"

And he goes, because he's not a little bit bored, a little bit intrigued. He meets them in their cosy flat in Paris because no one really tells Mal _'no'_ not when she's already said to them _'yes.' _They introduced Eames to Arthur who looked like hardly more than a sweet faced kid, hardly looked like more than Mal's latest pet project and Cobb's shadow.

He's quiet with a firm handshake, sharp eyes that meet Eames' head on. He can feel those eyes on him and he leers, touch lingering a moment too long on the slender hand in his. Arthur frowns and Eames remembers the tight clutch in his chest at the perfect wrinkle that caused on his forehead.

When they work Eames pokes and prods at this stoic -gorgeous- manchild. He flirts and he pushes and Arthur just doesn't respond. Mal laughs, Cobb scowls and Arthur is nothing if not bracingly professional; his bland, calculating expression at strange odds with his soft jeans and long sleeve pullovers.

When they go under, the job runs shockingly bad. It's a brutal reminder that no matter how much you study a mark, how much you know, the human mind is still an utterly unpredictable beast. The mark's mind is predisposed to mistrust, but none of them were properly prepared for the level of paranoia present in his projections. They've barely laid the groundwork for Cobb to come in and extract the information when a tour bus full of retirees turns on Eames.

Arthur is stunning.

"What the hell happened?"

Eames snorted a laugh, reloading his glock and firing out the passenger side window. His whole body tensed to brace itself against the sharp, nauseating movement while Arthur slammed them through imaginary London traffic. His shoulder lodge painfully into the edge of the window as they ground to a halt, the other man spun the wheel harshly and they sped down a side alley. Eames jerked himself back into his seat and glanced behind them down the center of the car, "Apparently, his subconscious didn't appreciate a little flirtation."

"Flirting? Really? That's why I've got a double decker bus full of gun toting sexagenarians on our heals?"

"I believe so, yes. Thrilling isn't it, darling?"

Arthur spared him fifteen seconds to glare before they exited the alley, careening into the flow of traffic. His normally placid face twisted into an incredulous expression, sweet mouth thinned and twisted down, his brow furrowed. The phone plugged into the dashboard lit up and Arthur swore, jerking the steering wheel with one hand to answer, his face clearing before he hurled the phone into the backseat.

"Cobb?" Eames yelled over the sounds of cars and the renewed sound of gunfire behind them.

Rather than reply Arthur groped blindly across the dash, grabbing his own gun and turning it on his companion; the muzzle was cool, "Can't say it's been much of a pleasure Mr. Eames," the flash was blistering.

The Cobbs were already packing away and cleaning up their IVs, rolling away the tubing back into the PASIV, Mal adjusting the flow of sedative to the mark. Cobb snapped the case closed, paused long enough to shake Eames' hand-

"Your money's already been wired."

"Cheers."

He did not see Arthur again for over a year.

Four

"I'd forgotten how exciting life could be around you," Eames easily imagined the grimace on Arthur's face.

"I assure you, any excitement is most definitely your own doing here." Gunfire sounded down the cellphone, the sound of smashing glass, and close, the harsh puffs of Arthur's heavy breathing. Eames could hear every clipped, controlled, metered out gasp.

"Oh no darling, this time I was _definitely_ on my best behavior," He sobered, vaulting the subway carousel to sprint across the tarmac before the G line could pull away, "Where are you?" more gunfire, now he could hear the echo down the tunnel, "Arthur?"

"Fifth car, heaving North, towards the station."

"Too late, we're already moving again."

"I've got to get off this subway Eames. Projections are closing in too fast," Arthur grunted and coughed violently, "fuck."

The north subway cars were clear of angry riders for the moment, and up ahead Eames could see flashes of machine gun fire, could feel the entire subway shuddering along the tracks. He shouldered through the connecting cars.

"We could always agree to just blame Cobb yeah? How about that?" no reply, "Arthur?" He burst into the fifth car and immediately dropped and rolled behind a row of seats as a hail of bullets issued through the opposite door. An explosion rocked the line from the direction he had just come. Eames ducked down, catching sight of Arthur propped up across the isle a few feet away, his phone slid across the corrugated floor, slick with blood.

"Eames-"

"Get over here, I'll cover you, next stop's in thirty seconds, we've got to get out of this car."

"Eames-"

"Go! _Move._" He fired in rapid, controlled bursts towards the back of the car, emptying his clip and discarding it. Pissed off projections closing in from all directions, now was not the time to be subtle and he pulled an M7 out from under the seat in front of him. Predictable. Arthur grunted and rolled, sliding the last three feet as the car began to jerk to a stop. Eames grabbed a handful of his sullied Dunhill jacket and hauled them both bodily back into the car ahead.

They ground to a halt and the subway doors opened; Eames darted a glance out on the suspiciously empty concourse. There wasn't time to wait, he could hear heavy boot steps approaching from either side. Arthur coughs wetly against him, one white knuckled grip still clinging to his sub machine gun.

They stumble through the abandoned station, Eames half carrying, half dragging the other man up the stairs and out into the daylight. There is a set of keys in Arthur's jacket pocket he knows go to the red sedan parked thirty feet away and he slings an arm around narrow shoulders, walking as inconspicuously as one can hope to manage with mostly dead, blood weight wrapped in several thousand dollars of ruined menswear.

"Come on love, just got to keep moving," Arthur spluttered a little and he couldn't be sure if the sharp elbow in his ribs was entirely an accident or not. Either way they crossed the street, nameless faces honing on their wrecked appearance, the air tinged with menace as a half dozen armed men burst out of the subway exit behind them. Eames dumped Arthur into the passenger seat and slid across the hood, jumping behind the wheel and cranking it hard into the street.

"How long until the kick?"

Arthur's arm lost its battle with gravity and his weapon clattered to the floor between them, "Too long." His entire body shuddered with the movement of the vehicle, blood staining the breadth of his shirt dark and tacky, "How do I always find myself in this position? I cannot believe I let Cobb talk me into working with you again."

"Hey hey now, wasn't me that spooked Jacob's entire subconscious now is it?"

The other man grimaced, forehead pressed to his window, "Something's wrong. Been wrong. I-"

"Yeah, I noticed."

"I don't-she..." the cough this time was more like a rattle, thick and gummed with blood.

Eames turned sharply into an underground parking garage and spun them smoothly into the empty place near the lift. Twenty floors above them Dom should be wheedling a safe combination from the mark and making his way to the penthouse. Now, here, Arthur fumbled a hand into the center console and extracted a loaded .45.

"Eames."

"How much time."

"Too much, you need to just go."

Eames took the gun from his trembling grasp and hitched it up against Arthur's temple. For the briefest moment it got him a twitch of a smile-

"Let's not do this again."

"You wound me Arthur, truly," and he pulled the trigger.

Three

Eames was never privy to the many times Cobb's subconscious Mal turned on them. He did not witness the times she walked in and pulled a gun on Arthur, over and over and-

These are bullet wounds he did not see, personally.

Two

Eames heard about Ariadne's introduction to dying in dreams well after the fact. After the Fischer job was a memory rather than a pulse pounding adrenaline rush his body still responded to by kicking into high gear. Because he and Arthur weren't talking after Mal died; didn't talk, in fact, after that fucked job with the subway when Mal was still alive but acting less and less like herself.

They all scattered after inception and he fully intended to never lay eyes on any of them again. As exhilarating as the experience might have been, Eames preferred things to run quite a lot more smoothly. He recognized that he probably should have washed his hands of Cobb a long time ago, would have saved so much hassle. The man was as foolish as he was a brilliant extractor.

But there was Ariadne, texting him less than six months later with a job. And here they were running from more angry projections while their piss poor point man died.

"_This_ is why you don't just work with anyone."

Ariadne rolled her eyes, leaping into the lift after him, wedging herself into the front corner and stabbing the door closed button while Eames fired down the hotel hallway.

"Ok, ok, but what do we do now?"

"Phone." She fumbled hers out of a pocket and handed it over, selecting the penthouse and sending them hurtling upstairs. Eames dialed the extractor. No reply. He snapped the phone closed in irritation and the doors to their car opened with a pleasant ding. Shouts and gunfire erupted almost immediately and Ariadne got the doors closed again.

"Fuck."

"Quite. Did you see what happened to Barns?"

She shook her head, "Not really. This isn't going to work is it?"

Eames checked his clip and shook his head, "Fraid not. If it's all the same to you I don't really relish waiting out the rest of our time riding the bloody elevator up and down."

This got a laugh, "Tell me something, truthfully, have you ever done a job that actually goes according to plan? I thought I was just unlucky with Dom."

He snorts derisively, "Cobb's his own kind of trouble magnet. But to answer your question," they were fast approaching the lobby and Eames firmed his grip on his gun, "I have actually-believe it or not-had a job or two go almost smoothly, yes." He dialed the phone again and let it ring and ring while she stabbed the lift close button again. Finally giving up as a lost cause he cocked his gun, "Well, that's that."

Ariadne cocked an eyebrow him, eyes a little wide.

"What, don't tell me dear Arthur never shot you out?"

"No!" she grinned a little, laughing outright as he rolled his eyes. "Sorry I got you involved in all this Eames, still friends?"

He caught her body on it's way to the floor.

One

When Eames turns the gun on himself he pauses, briefly thinking of the weight of the antique watch in his pocket. Before he pulls the trigger he casts his mind back, just to make sure. The day he doesn't question that this is a dream, the day he doesn't stop to consider, the day he isn't certain, is the day he knows it's time to get out.

He's already seen what staying too long too deep can do; has already watched the blood run out of Arthur, the light disappear from Mal's vibrant eyes, the sanity slip away from Cobb's face.

He's not there yet. He still wakes up from these bullet wounds.

Plus One

They're approaching the eleven month anniversary of the Fischer job when Eames gets the call from Yusef.

"Don't come home."

"What? What are you on about? What's happened?"

"I just dropped round your place and it's crawling with local police. I'm hearing Cobal."

"What in hell's name- I don't have any beef with Cobal."

He's in Paris being enthusiastically rained on at the moment. The job he'd had there wrapped early and until Yusef's call, Eames had been thinking about ringing up Ariadne and taking her out for some lavish brunch. The girl worked too hard between school and less official projects.

"I'm not entirely sure, they said it was a shooting but I think... look, who even knows where you live?"

"I- fuck. Just hold on a second," he pauses the call and punches in a number ten months out of date. It rings and rings, but this isn't a dream. He calls Cobb instead, because the house line there hasn't changed.

"How did you know where to find me?"

"Huh? Eames is that you?"

"Tell me Dom, who sent you to Mombasa?"

"Arthur."

Eames is already hanging up, turning around to hail a cab, "Yusef, you still there?"

"Course," the irritation is clear.

"I'm grabbing a plane-"

"What did I _just_ tell you not to do?"

Eames has never touched Arthur outside of dreams. Has never held him, or kissed him, or fucked him in any upscale hotel room. He does not entertain the thought that he might never do any of these things. He tries not to think that maybe, just maybe, Arthur broke his own self determined exile to look Eames up and found nothing but a dusty, empty apartment and trouble at the end of a gun.

He hangs up on Yusef's spluttering with a clipped command to get him more details or not to bother calling him at all. He gets into a cab and doesn't think about exit wounds all the way to the airport.

End


End file.
